Cheating Death

by April White

  “What do ye think ‘Is Lordship would do if ‘e were ‘ere?” Ringo asked quietly as we ate.

  I thought about that for a long moment. “I think he’d gather information about this timeline – as much as he could.”

  “To what end?” Ringo didn’t sound sarcastic, just curious.

  “It’s what he does. It’s his version of preparing himself for anything, I guess.” I wiped up the last of my soup with a piece of bread. “You and I are maybe more practical when it comes to surviving a situation we know nothing about. We look for the basics – food, hiding places, self-defense options – and then figure out how to navigate from there. Archer looks at new situations as if he’s playing chess. He studies the board and the players, and then he builds his strategy when he understands the game.”

  “Maybe we should think like Archer then,” Ringo murmured.

  I stood abruptly. “Let’s go find a Bear in the woods.” It was basically the antithesis of what Archer would have done, but thinking about him made it hard to breathe, and I needed air more than just about anything in that moment.

  Ringo regarded me for a long moment and finally nodded. “Right.”

  I let him lead the way so I didn’t have to concentrate on anything other than where to put my feet. Running gave me time to think, and thinking was something I’d been struggling with recently. Ringo took us to a section of the woods I hadn’t explored before, with big granite boulder outcroppings. We scrambled to the top of the biggest pile and dropped to a seat. The view back toward the school was spectacular, and I watched the distant lights while my heart rate slowed down to something resembling a normal pulse.

  “I think we have two problems,” I finally said.

  I could feel Ringo’s raised eyebrow next to me in the dark. “Only two?”

  I ignored him and ticked them off my fingers. “The biggest one has to do with reversing the time split. We either have to find someone willing to go to the British Museum station – someone our unwitting selves wouldn’t freak out about seeing there – who can change the whole attempted-murder/shooting-the-bomb thing, or we have to stop George Walters from going there in the first place.”

  “Either of those means a trip back to 1944, and both feel like stumblin’ around in a dark room full of wicked blades,” said Ringo.

  “Right. I know. I’m sick of slamming into things I can’t see, so it would be good to have a plan.”

  Ringo arched a brow. “Listen to yer big talk about havin’ a plan. What’s our second problem?”

  “Ava’s vision about the Council meeting tomorrow. If there’s going to be an attack, we’d be crazy to go in there completely blind.”

  “Ye think?” His voice was thick with irony.

  I turned to look at Ringo. “I do want to think like Archer would – plan, be strategic, figure out the players and their game. I mean, the political situation here is weird, right? But weird in a way that could be possible in our own time.”

  “With a massive shift of power, maybe,” Ringo said doubtfully.

  I shrugged. “Why not? The players are all there, more or less, they’re just on different squares playing different roles than we’re used to. It’s like the rook is suddenly a knight, and the king might actually just be a pawn.”

  “Mongers are the pawns?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. My point is that if we learn how this game is being played, it might give us insight into how to fix the problems in our own Council.”

  “When did ye get so political?” He met my eyes.

  I sighed. “I just know we need to go to that Council meeting tomorrow.”

  “So you’ve come about MacFarlane then?” A deep voice came from the darkness.

  I forced myself to stay still. “Hello, Mr. Shaw. There’s room up here if you want to join us.”

  “Answer the question.” He ground out the words gruffly as I turned to look at him. He was wearing clothes, so he hadn’t come as a Bear, and the expression on his face was hard.

  “Ye’re talkin’ about the Clocker bloke at St. Brigid’s?”

  Mr. Shaw snorted. “If he were only a Clocker we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?”

  That statement would probably have sounded really cryptic to someone who wasn’t me. “He’s mixed?” I asked carefully.

  There was a long moment of silence before Shaw spoke again. “When MacFarlane showed up, my class was ABO typing, so I got a look then.”

  “Blood testing,” I murmured to Ringo.

  “Yeah. Connor taught me ‘ow.”

  Mr. Shaw hoisted himself up onto the boulder. “Connor who?” he growled at Ringo.

  “Connor Edwards.”

  “You don’t know Connor.” Shaw said. His wariness was making me tired.

  Ringo sighed. “‘E’s a Shifter Wolf, ‘is little brother, Logan, can Shift into any animal ‘e chooses, ‘is da died before ‘e was ten, and ‘e’s the smartest bloke I know.”

  Shaw settled back and sounded smug. “You know something about him, apparently, but you certainly don’t know him. My nephews are camping with their father this weekend – their very-much-alive father.”

  My breath hitched in my chest. According to my mom, Connor’s dad had died in a car accident with a drunk driver. Was it possible the accident had never happened on this timeline because of something that changed when George Walters was blown up in 1944?

  Ringo stared at me. “What did we do?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know what your game is, but I don’t like it,” Mr. Shaw snarled.

  I tore my eyes away from Ringo’s and gave the angry Shifter my full attention – I would deal with the fallout later. I took a deep breath. “Mr. Shaw, you said MacFarlane ‘showed up.’ What does that mean?”

  The subject change seemed to send him off-balance enough that he answered automatically. “Just what I said. We came back from the holiday and there he was – a nineteen-year-old Scottish Clocker, apparently shipped here by his parents to finish his education in England. At first he was quiet, always watching, always paying attention to the least little thing …” His voice trailed off, as though he might have said more, but stopped himself.

  “Why did you assume we’re here for MacFarlane?”

  Mr. Shaw was silent for a long moment and seemed to be searching my face for … something. Finally, he grunted. “His mother’s people are Clockers, and I believe he’s trying to get back to them.”

  “Get back to them? If he’s a Clocker he can place-jump to Scotland any time he wants to.”

  “The difficulty is, there are no MacFarlanes left in Scotland,” he said simply. “I checked.”

  I replayed his words in my head. “You think he’s from a different time?”

  Mr. Shaw nodded. “I do.”

  “Yer blood test showed ‘e’s mixed. What’s ‘e mixed with?” asked Ringo quietly.

  The Bear didn’t look at my friend when he answered. He just spoke the word into the night to be carried away on the breeze. “Monger.”

  I shook my head. “Who else knows that besides you?”

  Mr. Shaw’s gaze swung back to me. “No one does.”

  “We were talking about going to the Council meeting tomorrow, and you asked if we were here for MacFarlane. What does he have to do with the Council if they don’t know he’s mixed?”

  Mr. Shaw seemed to consider his words very carefully before he spoke. “Young Darrell MacFarlane has been accused of a crime, and tomorrow the Council is meeting to decide his fate. This might not be so remarkable if not for the fact that for the first time since World War II, there will be a sitting Councillor for War.”

  I was stunned. “Mongers haven’t sat on the Council in seventy years?”

  “There’s been no need, as they have no particular skill to speak of beyond making trouble.”

  I couldn’t even wrap my head around the strangeness of this time stream’s politics. “So, what happens when there’s a Monger Head at the
table?”

  “Not just a Monger Head, the Monger himself is coming to listen to the case against young MacFarlane.”

  “Duncan is coming?” I gasped.

  Mr. Shaw nodded solemnly. “And with one Immortal in the room, they may have no choice but to call Death to decide the boy’s fate.”

  My jaw had dropped open, and I didn’t even care that I looked like a dimwitted fish. Ringo found his voice before I could remember where I left mine.

  “What did MacFarlane do?” he asked.

  Shaw surveyed us with a serious gaze. “He stole the Clocker necklace.”

  Information

  Confusion made my head spin. “He can’t have stolen it,” I said with a lot more conviction than I felt. “The Clocker necklace isn’t on this time stream.” And it couldn’t be, because my mom had Clocked forward with it from the Council massacre of 1871, so it had skipped over the split and landed with her on the real time stream – the one I came from.

  It was Mr. Shaw’s turn to look shocked. “Of course it is. All the Family Heads have their artifacts except the Mongers.”

  “No they don’t.” His Family didn’t either, because I happened to have the Shifter bone tucked down inside my shirt. And since I’d found it in 1889 and basically removed it from circulation, it couldn’t have been found by anyone on a time stream that didn’t exist until 1944. Ever since we’d landed here I was paranoid about leaving the Shifter bone, or anything else of importance, behind in the Clocker Tower. My daggers were currently strapped to my back under my shirt, and Archer’s ring was on my finger. I even had a tin of green medicine next to the Maglite in my back pocket. I was as prepared as I knew how to be, especially since it was the only thing I felt like I had any control over.

  “They most certainly do,” Mr. Shaw insisted. “The artifacts give the Family Heads their right to sit on the Council. The Mongers lost their right when their artifact was lost in the war.”

  I shot a quick look at Ringo. He was grimly silent, probably thinking the same thing I was: everyone except maybe the Seers was lying about having their artifact.

  “So, Millicent’s the Clocker Head?” I asked Mr. Shaw.

  “Lady Millicent was going to step down in favor of her daughter, but now the change of title is on hold until the necklace is found.” Mr. Shaw wore his gruff voice like an accessory. It was especially jarring because I knew what he sounded like without it, and I missed his kindness and humor.

  “Mrs. Arman is the Seer Head, right?”

  “Only until her daughter turns eighteen next month,” Shaw said.

  “Really? I’ve always thought of Camille Arman as more the Queen Elizabeth type – they’ll have to pry that crown out of her cold, dead fingers.”

  Miraculously, Mr. Shaw chuckled. “I would have thought that too. But Ava is clearly the stronger Seer, and a good relationship with her daughter seems to be more important to Camille than power. Of course, thwarting Phillip Landers’ ambitions also might have something to do with it.”

  I’d forgotten that Tom’s dad was such a power-hungry jerk. “What about the Shifters? Are the Shaws still banned from leadership?”

  Mr. Shaw stood abruptly and leapt to the ground. “As fascinating as this conversation has been, I’ll leave you now.” He moved away before I could even get to my feet.

  “Mr. Shaw! He didn’t do it, you know.” I called after him.

  He paused, the broad outline of him barely visible in the darkness.

  “Will Shaw didn’t kill the Council in 1871. Rothchild brought in Weres, and they went crazy with bloodlust, killing everyone except my dad, because he had Shifted and could fight them off. He hid the Shifter bone for his brother, Brian, to find. I know where it is, if you want it.” My words trailed off because I wasn’t quite sure what I was offering. Was I really prepared to give him the Shifter bone from around my neck just so he could finally be the Family Head?

  I felt Ringo’s tension crackle next to me, and I held my breath. Finally, the sound of footsteps resumed as Mr. Shaw walked away without another word.

  “Ye do realize ‘e may not want to be Shifter ‘Ead?” Ringo said quietly.

  “I just told him that the current Head is probably lying about having the Family artifact. I think his honor will kick in and he’ll feel duty-bound to expose the fraud.” I got up and brushed off my jeans before jumping down to the ground.

  “So then, are ye really goin’ to leave the Shifter bone on a timeline you mean to destroy?”

  “Not holding back even a little bit, are you?” I said grimly.

  Ringo landed beside me. “I think ye’re right about goin’ to that Council meetin’ tomorrow, if only to see War and maybe Death in the flesh. But then I think we need to leave this place. Whatever was set in motion with the bomb in 1944 ‘as left a tangled mess, and I’ve a feelin’ that a storm is comin’ to whip that mess into a giant knot. We don’t want to get tied up with that, ye know?”

  I threw a bunch of drama into my sigh, just to get it out and over with. “I was hoping we could figure out when and where to go before we hurled ourselves into a spiral.”

  Ringo shrugged. “1944 seems as good as any other time, and better than some.”

  “Before the bomb? I don’t even know if I can get us there.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll have luck tracing George Walters’ movements in the weeks leading up to it. In any case, we’ll be closer to the split and much farther away from this political madness.”

  I sighed again. I was tired of hunting for needles in haystacks. “You’re right. It’s a place to start, and if we’re at your flat, we can stay anonymous.”

  “That’s what I was thinkin’ too. Ye all right to run back, or do ye need to do some more dramatic sighin’?”

  I threw an elbow into his side and then took off running. Ringo’s laughter behind me finally made me smile.

  Tom Landers was waiting for us when we got back. He had parked himself outside the Clocker Tower, which was disturbing enough, but when Tom’s voice came out of a face I barely recognized, I struggled to keep my expression neutral.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said to me.

  I stopped outside the door because I had a strange desire to keep him out of my space. “What’s up?” I tried for casual, but even I could hear the tension in my voice.

  “You said I don’t look like myself, which implies that you know me, but as someone else. Explain please.” He sounded arrogant, just like his dad, with none of the teasing cockiness that Adam did so charmingly well.

  I looked him straight in the eye. “No.”

  Tom took a step backward, as if my refusal had pushed him. “But I’ve Seen you tell me.”

  “Then you already know the answers.”

  His arrogance crumbled at the edges, and a glimpse of the Tom I knew peeked out. “Tell me why you know Adam, then.”

  I relented. “We’re friends.”

  “Why don’t I know you? I’ve Seen you, so I feel as though I must.”

  “What have you Seen me do?” I asked. No matter how dumb it was to ask about the future, I could never help myself. I caught Ringo’s warning look, but I ignored it.

  Tom’s expression shifted to something calculating. “An information trade then? I’ll tell you what I’ve Seen, and you’ll tell me why I don’t look like myself.”

  That was the piece of the story I really, really didn’t want to tell him, and he must have seen the reluctance on my face, because he decided to tempt me. “My vision involved the Council meeting tomorrow.”

  I exhaled sharply. The Tom I knew hadn’t been a particularly distinguished Seer, maybe because he was mixed with Monger, but on this time stream he was a full-blooded Seer – one whose visions I probably shouldn’t ignore. “Damn. Okay, you go first.”

  “Clearly not. I don’t know you, and therefore have no reason to trust you,” he said.

  “What I have to tell you will upset you, and you’re going to want to get as far awa
y from me as possible,” I said. He looked skeptical. “Okay, fine, I’ll give you the first piece, then you tell me what you Saw, and I’ll tell you the rest. Does that work?”

  He must have practiced Phillip Landers’ haughty look in the mirror, because he did it exceptionally well. Finally, he looked around. “Are we really going to have this conversation in the hall?”

  I sighed again. Apparently I wasn’t done with the drama for the night. “Fine, you can come in.” He was a Seer, so he probably already knew where the key was kept, and after tomorrow’s Council meeting, we’d be gone anyway.

  Tom looked around the inside of my tower in awe. “I didn’t know this was here.”

  I flipped over the paper on which I’d been writing my list of time stream differences and sat on the desk. Ringo draped himself over the back of the chair and left the sofa for Tom. Our seating choices put him at a height disadvantage, which was calculated to take some of the arrogance out of his posture. It worked.

  “So, you probably already know I’m a Clocker, right?”

  Tom nodded. “Ava told us.”

  “Well, technically, I don’t exist on this time stream.” His eyebrows rose, but he stayed silent. “Time split in 1944, and I’m from the other time.”

  “Time … split.” It wasn’t a question, but more of a trying-to-wrap-his-brain-around-it statement.

  “Yeah.”

  “Like, it … broke?” The wheels were churning, and I could see him begin to work it out.

  “It’s more like dropping a boulder into a stream. Water keeps flowing down one side like always, but now there’s a new side for it to flow. It’s the same river, but with two streams.”